Deathwatch by Dana Marton

won't even know I'm here. I promise,” she rushed to say.  
    Then she relaxed for a moment, but the next second she realized what she'd just done, and she tensed again. For the first time ever, she'd told someone her secret. Thing was, if she'd made a mistake trusting Murph, she probably wasn’t going to live long enough to regret it.
    “I'm going to run out for a second to see about those boys from the alley,” he told her. “You keep that gun of yours close at hand and lock up behind me.”
    * * *
    Murph stood in the middle of the largest holding cell in the back of the police station. Harper was the only one in the office up front; he'd let Murph come back, gave him the key.
    Eduardo and his buddies crowded in the farthest corner of the cell. They didn't look as sure of themselves without their knives, without an escape route, face-to-face with Murph. He could see the scruffy crew better in the neon lights, dirty jeans and wrinkled shirts, frayed sneakers except for Eduardo's steel-toe boots. Maybe he'd worked at one point during the day.
    Murph pulled himself to full height, but talked in a calm tone, without anger. “I ever hear you get in any kind of trouble again, I'm going to make sure you're put away. This is your last free ride.”
    The two short ones nodded hesitantly, eyes filled with fear. They knew that without knives, in a fair fight, he could take all three of them out without breaking a sweat.
    “ Now, Kate, the woman you were dumb enough to harass,” Murph got to the point he'd come here to make, “is a friend of mine. You so much as walk down the same street as she does, two things are going to happen. One, she's going to shoot your sorry asses. Two, while you're in the hospital, I'm going to come in for a visit. See how we're just talking here?” He paused. “That's not how it's going to happen next time. I'm not going to say a damn thing. This is your first and last warning. Do you understand?”  
    “ Yes, sir,” the two shorter boys snapped out the words.  
    Eduardo shrugged, hate boiling in his dark eyes. His pupils were pinpricks. Whatever he'd taken, hadn't worn off yet. He had his chin down, his hands clenched into fists.
    Murph kept an eye on him. “ Anybody tell you to go after her? Scare her a little?” If Asael was in town, he might have set her up to knock her off balance.  
    “ Just wanted to have some fun,” the youngest of the three said gruffly, his nervous glance darting to Eduardo then back to Murph. “Bored, man. No money for nuthin'.”  
    Murph watched him for a moment. He didn't think the kid was lying.
    Then, out of the blue, Eduardo charged with a high-pitched scream, kicking and punching wildly, fueled by drugs.
    Murph deflected the attack. As pissed as he was at the boy, he didn't want to have to beat up a stupid kid. Eduardo kicked hard, but as Murph moved out of the way, the kid ended up kicking the cell's lock with his steel-toe boot. The bars rattled. Eduardo grunted in pain. Then went for Murph again. Kicked. Missed. The bars rattled behind Murph.
    Enough of this.
    “Stop,” he warned the boy. And when Eduardo kept coming, Murph dropped him with a single punch. He didn't have all night to mess around here.
    Eduardo went down, stayed down with a stunned look on his face. Murph shook his head at the other boys in the corner, then walked out, locked the cell behind him. He had to work to make the key turn. The idiot had kicked hard enough to warp the metal. With some luck, the kid got at least a broken toe as a reminder to quit being stupid, Murph thought as he walked up front to the office.
    He dropped the key off at Harper's desk. “ You keeping them the full twenty four hours?”  
    Harper grinned. “Every minute.”
    “ You might want to put them into a different cell. The lock got a little bent out of shape .”  
    He drove home, thinking about the boys, about Asael, about Kate. Mostly about Kate. She was getting to him. He had to be careful